


Camping!

by thatsrightdollface



Category: Sally Face (Video Games)
Genre: Camping, Character Study, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Happy Halloween!, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2018-10-25
Packaged: 2019-08-07 13:15:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16409231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsrightdollface/pseuds/thatsrightdollface
Summary: Sal has been invited on a camping trip in the woods just by Addison Apartments.  Todd suggested they investigate a probably-haunted shed out there, see.





	Camping!

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!!! Thank you so much for reading this. I hope you enjoy it. :) 
> 
> I... Open on a breakfast scene here in part 'cause I read an interview with Steve Gabry where he said Sal really likes times when he can eat in peace without anyone around/without his prosthetic on. This all happened 'cause I was imagining times like that... And what great company Gizmo probably is, dawww. What a good cat.
> 
> Have a wonderful day!

It was a heavy, grey morning, and Sal Fisher was in his and his dad’s apartment eating breakfast alone.  Well, alone except for Gizmo the cat, who was curled up next to him on the couch just then, tail flicking restlessly in his sleep.  But Sal had never felt self-conscious around _Gizmo_.  He could say anything to that cat – murmuring commentary or complaining under his breath or whatever came to mind – and he’d end up feeling less alone…  And you know, it didn’t hurt how Gizmo never looked at him differently with or without his prosthetic face on, either.  Sal was always just clearly the same person – still the guy who knew which cabinet the best cat treats were tucked away in, more than a victim or a mystery or a reminder of his lost mother or anything, anything else.

Gizmo had seen Sal on mornings when he woke up late, too, stumbling around with his toothbrush in his mouth or his glass eye dripping cleaning solution stuff in his hand…  Maybe hunting for homework his dad had tossed in some drawer or another while he was sleeping, or something.  Tidying the place up drunk – Sal tried not to get _too_ flustered about stuff like that, but Gizmo had heard him swearing through a bunch of toothpaste just the same as he’d tumbled awake to awful dreams with him and curled up patiently in the hall outside the bathroom while he had the flu.

Larry Johnson from the basement – Sal’s best friend and partner in murder-investigation related crime since the actual hour they’d met – had picked the lock on their apartment door, that day, actually…  To bring Sal food from his mom, mostly, and make _absolutely sure_ he wasn’t dead/didn’t need a ride to the urgent care or anything.  Larry’d found Gizmo waiting there, when he’d headed over to slump against the wall outside the bathroom, too.  Sal had instructed Larry on how to scratch Gizmo behind the ears so he’d really, really like it…  And eventually pried the bathroom door open, when he heard how badly Larry wanted to be sure he was getting enough water in him.

Sal stirred his cereal up a little bit, now, dipping the appropriately Halloween-themed marshmallows under some milk.  He sighed; he brushed some hair out of his face, behind an ear.  He told Gizmo, “I hope this’ll go well, buddy.  I’ve been looking forward to it and all, but…  Huh.”

Gizmo shifted, stretching out one of his paws to bat at the air.  Maybe he was having a “Hunt the Feather-Toy” dream.  Sal imagined he probably really enjoyed those.

It had been a while since Sal had gone on anything like a trip, after all.  Since he and his dad moved from New Jersey, really – staying in a bunch of motels and hitting up drive-throughs so his dad got enough caffeine to keep himself awake behind the wheel.  It’d been even longer since Sal had slept in a tent with anybody else, too...  Or really, slept anywhere without solid walls and a nice, locked door between him and the world beyond.  Sleeping bags and lanterns, wind-up radios and bottled sterile water to wash his eye in…  This was all something else – something new, or maybe something left behind with childhood summers and friends Sal remembered like old, blurry photographs.

Todd was bringing his parents’ old portable stove along on this particular camping trip, he’d said, and plotting to make everybody pancakes.  They were going into the deep woods by Addison Apartments, on the weekend just before Halloween.  There was a supernatural hotspot Todd had been interested in checking out back there, and Larry had some fond, bittersweet memories of camping with his dad, and…  Well, it had all sort of tumbled together this way.  Sal had said things like “Let’s do it!” and “I’ve been  _meaning_  to try the Super GameGear outside the apartment complex.  Wonder what’ll happen?”  They’d do a hike, make s’mores, poke around a mysterious shed waiting in the middle of the trees that – apparently – didn’t have any doors or windows and occasionally forgot to cast a shadow.  They’d probably stay up late talking, too, and it would be the sort of high school experience Sal had been wondering if he’d ever really get a chance to have, before he and his dad moved out here.  Before any actual, honest-to-goodness friends were calling him “Sally Face”...  Instead of just kids who thought it was fun to prod at him with verbal sticks.

Sal had packed thoroughly — lots of extra socks, just in case anybody needed them, and a box of those soft granola bars in a bunch of different flavors.  A coat, lots of hair ties in case his snapped or wandered away... You know.  He’d folded in a back-up prosthetic face at the very bottom of his bag, too. It was a little small for him, now, and had been cracked pretty horribly by some jerks back at his old school, but it taped up something a little like okay.  He’d also asked Larry’s mom to drop in and feed Gizmo in case his dad forgot, so... Everything should be fine.  Everything should be great.

There was no reason to expect things to go sour, somehow.  Out in nature, in huddled trees and darkness, with the smell of raw earth and rain in the air and the world stirring around them.  Potential strangers and animals, potential curious classmates who happened to be passing by and…  Sal didn’t know.  He _did_ know there was no reason to think this couldn’t just be a really fun weekend, and he also knew it was generally easier for him to be confident if he didn’t obsess over things first, chewing on bad thoughts until they felt like taffy caught in his teeth.  Sal had bought a disposable camera, and he was gonna take pictures of everything until he ran out of film.  If he didn’t end up with at least a dozen goofy pictures of Larry, it would’ve been fair to say something had gone horribly, irredeemably wrong.  Sal was going on an adventure with people he trusted and cared about, and if they got mixed up in some weird mystery-shed conspiracy stuff, well then it’d be a good thing _somebody_ decided to check it out, huh?  Sal was usually game for investigating stuff, and nothing had turned out to be too much to handle, so far.

And now – before the trip, before the disposable camera, before everything – Sal took his pills with some juice and finished off his cereal watching TV.  Sal smoothed down Gizmo’s fur, and waited for the knock at his door that would mean it was time to get going.  Time to grab his bag and his face, time to stick that _“See you soon!  Take care of yourself!”_ note he’d written to his dad on the fridge.

That knock came while Sal was laughing at something on TV, wiping cereal milk off his lip and asking Gizmo if he’d seen the episode’s twist coming or not.  The sky was dripping and foggy outside, and they would probably have to spend a while hammering those tent poles into such cold, muddy ground.  The moon would be huge and golden above them that night, swollen like fruit ready to be picked.  The forest would be so living and strange – holding its own secrets close, kinda like the Addison Apartments building itself.  The Addison Apartments, with all those ghosts and sealed-off rooms.  Sal’s sleeping bag would be spread out next to Larry’s, and their whispering voices would be swallowed up in the rustle of the leaves.

Sal propped himself up to attention, when Larry pounded on the door and called, “Hey – Sally Face!  We doing this or what?”  But something like relief spread through him at the same time, too.  Relief and excitement and…  Well.  Sal didn’t feel the need to be self-conscious around Gizmo, but his self-consciousness had started peeling away around Larry a long time ago, too.  Larry’s mom had introduced him to people as something like family, actually, and Larry had glanced over at him with a proud little smile when she said it.  He’d stretched his eyebrows up, too, like he was asking, _“Well, what do you think of that?”_

Sal had patted Larry’s arm, then.  Just tentatively.  Fumbling, though he’d meant the gesture to seem sort of suave and in-control.  The whole thing had been a pretty telling answer, though, probably.  The way the Johnsons actively went out of their way to keep Sal close meant more than he knew how to say.

Sal got himself situated and let Larry and Todd in with a sweeping, playful hand.  He snickered and said, “Well, yeah,” when Larry asked if  _he_  could have a bowl of marshmallow cereal, too, and charted out hiking trails with Todd in a battered little book from the library in town.  The TV played on behind them, and nobody said anything when Gizmo switched the channel over to something a little more his speed.  More explosions and car chases, you know. That was all good.  He’d been a very patient cat, agreeing to wait so long to switch away from the cartoons, really.

By the time they set off for the woods – the woods and their haunted (?) sheds and firepit spots and cryptic nighttime noises – the day was warming up, little by little, and Larry had already found an interesting walking stick by the edge of the trees.


End file.
